


A Skip in Time

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Series: Reconcilliation (Reaper Jessica Moore) [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU subplot thing I ripped out, Alternate Timelines, Becoming Unstuck in Time Trope, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore Lives, Just Screwing Around in the Same Basic Universe, Leading to Unintentional Time Travel, Mad sam winchester, Madness, Messing around with time agnosia, Multi, Neurodivergent Sam Winchester, Optional reading, Outtakes, POV Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Time Agnosia, Time Skips, Unintentional Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 01:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13493715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: Decisions have been made, and these are the aftereffects.





	A Skip in Time

Happiness comes in waves for Sam, Dean and Jess. When it isn’t time for anything like that, it just isn’t.

The relief when they first pull her out of the field in Texas is palpable enough that Sam can swear he hears thunder, like the sky splitting where the light is spilling forth.

Then there’s the slow, dawning joy when Jess puts on her rings, one for Sam and one for Dean, and Dean has his, and the three rings glint together, telling the story of four years and more.

The things that come later are slow and creeping, little bits of uncertainty that balloon.

Is it right, not the part with the rings and the joy, but the work that got them here, and pulling someone from the sky, no matter how readily she re-materialized for them?

Sam isn’t sure, isn’t...isn’t.

He tries hard to be, but sometimes lying there beside Jess--Sam still sleeps farthest from the door, Jess in the middle on her side, and Dean with the weapons under his pillow--Sam can break into a sweat.

Just thinking about it. Just thinking about it too hard.

Dean knows the look in his eye now, and sometimes he snaps his fingers lightly in front of Sam, or at least within earshot and Sam knows. He was showing things he was thinking again. He was-- 

He was--

 _You’re quietly going mad. It’s fine. All the best people’ve done it_ , he hears from nowhere, or everywhere.

And he can’t tell what he should do, but Jess squeezes him tighter sometimes, or sometimes stops touching him and he wants to say that he watched her die, though that’s not exactly accurate, or was, and isn’t now, never to be accurate again. 

And he doesn’t know what to do.

He spends some of his time in one place, where everything happened the way he knows it did, and some with Jess and Dean in the now.

And the now is beautiful and wonderful. He wouldn’t change a thing. It’s just….

It’s just that he isn’t sure sometimes if he’s slipping--slipping between, or just slipping.

There’s a Dean that settles in the back of his head, maybe he’s always been there, maybe he got there when Sam left home. And that Dean, the ones that reminds him how to move through the world when he thinks _what would Dean do_ , that Dean reminds him he’s got the girl. And he’s got his brother. And in a way he’s even got his father, ghost that John Winchester is, and has always been.

He’s had his brushes with death and he’s been safe. And Jess is safe. Isn’t she? And Dean is safe.

It’s just that sometimes Sam feels strange. Like there’s something else that could have happened, a thing that’s dogged him somehow since Cold Oak, the town with the belltower and all of the nothing inside of it.

And gently, gently, he loses the thread, but gently, gently, in a way that surprises Sam, Dean guides him back. Back to Dean, back to Jess.

Back to life.

_We’ve got it all._

And they do. And they’re safe.

Aren’t they?

It’s just that sometimes Sam loses the thread.

It’s just that sometimes Sam is scared. Scared out of his wits. Scared out of knowing exactly where he is.

Who he is.

Who he’s supposed to be.

He’s unmoored, but Dean, he’s thriving, and that part, that part’s good, very good, perfect, even.

Sam always knew he’d give anything to live in the world where Dean said no to their father for once.

Where Dean grew to learn who John really was, terror of Sam’s days and nights.

And gently, gently, they can be with each other now, because Dean is moored, Dean is where he’s supposed to be, anchored and safe.

Bobby watches Sam sometimes, like he knows. He doesn’t say much, and sometimes he looks away, too, and that can say more. Sometimes it does.

Sam comes unmoored, unglued, again, but he lets Dean lead him back. He comes to expect it, comes to trust it. And that, that’s something else he treasures, too.

It’s only that he remembers static electricity and an ambulance with the lights off, four years of trying and failing to know what to do.

And Jess is safe in his arms. Jess is safe in his arms. 

He hardly wishes her ill. 

It’s only that he remembers.

“We’ve got you, Sam,” they say. And when they do, Sam remembers the music most of all.

“Are we going to be alright?” he asks.

“Safer together than apart,” Jess whispers, and kisses him, soft and sweet, and he knows she’s right.

And they stay connected, maybe not in the way it was then, in those four years, but he never feels the loss of her, not really. 

It’s just that he doesn’t know how to have her back.

Sometimes he jumps, unaware she’s supposed to be there. 

And sometimes he’s lost in the fact that she isn’t there, while she stands right in front of him.

He remembers the moment when Bobby saw her, ghost that she was, and said that they couldn’t know how he felt, that what’s dead should stay dead.

He twirls her ring on his finger and sighs.

He feels the soft presence of both of them behind his eyes and they keep him just buoyant enough. 

*~*~*

He just can’t always tell that she’s meant to be there.

That’s all it is.

*~*~*

She holds him tighter, trying to prove her solidity when he slips from where they are into the then when she wasn’t there.

And he sees everyone watching, and he feels feverish and wrong, not just a little mad but factually wrong.

Please please please please.

He asks but he doesn’t know what he’s asking for.

*~*~*

What comes after a please when you don’t know what you want, much less what you need?

*~*~*

Still, there are happy times, when they’re all in the same slip of time and he knows he’s always wanted this, perfect as it is right now.

And he tries to hold to that. It’s just that he can’t. Not always. And it’s getting harder.

It’s getting harder.

*~*~*

He tries, for Dean, for Jess, and for Bobby too, and for the fact that his father roams aimlessly, just as aimless perhaps as Sam is himself.

All of those things are things he has wished for, family without the pain.

But now he knows it’s not without the pain. You can’t avoid pain. It’s only different.

It’s only different.

He curls into the middle of the bed, really running a fever, and the two of them hold onto him and tell him he’s going to come back to them.

And he will. He’ll make sure of it. He owes them that.

She pulls him close and gently sings to him, and when he remembers the music it pulls him back into place.

With her. And Dean.

He lets the weight of Jess’ ring tether him to their time and he remembers why he is there, why she is there, why Dean told their father no.

His heart soars again and he floats home.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a horrible person and also I have pacing problems, so this little section could have been much longer but also nobody wants to see this destroyed Sam for that long. He'll be okay. 
> 
> ETA: I was basically going to stop at several points, but. Apparently there's a lot more where this came from, and basically in addition to other symptoms and issues, Sam has time agnosia mostly because he's a good sport and wants me to be able to write things down about this. This is a subplot Sam wanted in book 4 but circumstances did not allow it due to how I was writing at the time. So, consider this a "pushed later on the timeline/later development/book 1.5 or 2" kind of thing.
> 
> Now with its own series in case people want to find a time agnosia novel.
> 
> I have this. A version of this. What I'm writing is basically Sam's version, with sci-fi and SPN elements.


End file.
